whYNOT

The following is from a presentation of the Rand/Branden model of free will, by Onkar Ghate in the Blackwell A Companion to Ayn Rand.
“Rand rejects any theory of volition that roots free will in a choice between particular items of mental content: whether to walk or ride the bus to work (selection between envisioned physical actions); whether to order the vanilla cheesecake because one is hungry or the bowl of mixed berries because one is on a diet (selection between desires or motives that will govern one’s physical actions); whether to admire Mother Teresa or Bill Gates (selection of values); whether to accept the psychological theories of Freud or of cognitive psychologists (selection of ideas). For Rand, all such matters are secondary and derivative: at root, free will is the power to activate one’s conceptual faculty and direct its processing or not. ‘All life entails and exhibits self-regulated action’, writes Branden in presenting Rand’s theory.”
“An individual becomes both capable and aware of his power of conscious self-regulation as his mind develops. ‘It must be stressed’, Branden writes, ‘that volition pertains, specifically, to the conceptual level of awareness. A child encounters the need of cognitive self-regulation when and as he begins to think, . . . to reason explicitly. . . .” (“The Objectivist Theory of Volition” TO 5(1), 23)
Rand and Aristotle remarked that higher animals are able to perceive more in sensory perception and to remember more than are lower animals. In modern psychology, the development of perceptual and memorial competencies in childhood has been greatly illuminated. I’d add to the Rand/Branden idea that the human conscious self-regulation emergences with the onset of conceptual abilities in children, add that: self-regulation of memory is also critical for the distinctly human abilities. “Remember this” we say to ourselves. Since the invention of sticky pads, I riddle my books with little strips of them.
“The choice to ‘think or not’ is not man’s only choice, according to Rand: it is his primary choice. This choice sets a mind’s regulating goal. Sub-choices then arise to the extent that there is such a goal, and are the means of implementing it.”
 

Here is an interview with one of the alternate jurors.

William and Scott: A contribution to get the ball rolling. Harking back to earlier days, and how much has changed and hasn't. One could start at the 25min mark if time-constrained.
 

William and Scott: A contribution to get the ball rolling. Harking back to earlier days, and how much has changed and hasn't. One could start at the 25min mark if time-constrained.
 

Stephen, quoting from your post in RoR:
"In 1984 I wrote an essay titled "The Moral Value of Liberty" which was published in Nomos. I need to quote something I wrote therein:

This is an expression of what I think of as conveyance of the primacy of existence into human values in a radical way. This is primacy of existence running more deeply in human values than in any egoistic theory of ethics.

The idea that external things need to be valuable to oneself in order for oneself to be valuable to oneself is not entirely foreign to Rand's writings on ethics. She has an essay called "Selfishness without a Self" that touches on this. She drafts her Howard Roark as oriented to external things and constructions he values; he is only secondarily oriented to himself as valuer of those things.

Ethical egoism is the view that all moral values and virtues can be based purely on consideration of the agent's self-interest. I have watched attempts to set ethics purely on self-interest from Protagoras and Socrates to Plato and Aristotle to Spinoza and Rand and Mack to my colleague Irfan Khawaja. I don't buy them. They all fail. They fudge sooner or later. There is truth and value in these attempts, and I will keep on watching their latest editions".
--
I wonder at your high level thinking in the statement, but whether this 'meta-ethical egoism' (for want of a better term ) can and must always reduce to Rand's ethical egoism? If one wanted to, one couldn't escape moral self-interest, I sense. Putting doubts aside, yours is a radical line of thought.
For me, first I had to understand things clearly as they are "out there", before I could place value (or otherwise) in them -- and before I could find objective value in myself. Valuing and rational selfishness wasn't automatic or 'given' and took me longest to appreciate.
(Couldn't one achieve self-value existing in a Gulag all one's life, knowing only the bad?; conversely, we may see a free person who had all the advantages of perceiving valuable "external things" quite often fail to know self-value).
 
 

Both or any rational people take reality as their final arbiter, and so it may be said that their specific purpose/goals - and "interest"- can't and won't clash, in the final analysis. Two individuals apply for the same position or contract; or suitors vie for the one woman - they'll understand that the acceptance of their rival was due to a rational judgment (the one's abilities/experience/etc. were more suitable to an employer, or the girl placed higher value/love in the other guy) and so no conflict and animus is possible to them. Neither, in rational justice, would want or could tolerate the unearned - if they 'won' by other, irrational or underhanded means.
Much like that vilified and scorned "Capitalist competition" as appraised by Rand (which one sees to be as true): saying something like, competition of capitalist markets isn't the main goal but instead the byproduct of productive individuals.
We don't essentially try to beat each other, our products of our minds and a free market decide who will do better.
In reality there is more than only one fine woman and the market is infinitely expansive for all to enter and do well, no conflict.

It's helpful to concentrate on the positive and affirmative, which sets a measure for the NON-conflict of interests to be compared against. Where one has ascertained that the other is committed to rationality and places his reasoning above all, I think the rest follows. Medium and long term he is acting on reality and for his own self-interest - as you are. He must also be the beneficiary of his moral actions, which you'd not withhold from him identically as you'd not deny yourself and your own. There is recognition of your partner in rationality being of high value in himself, in his own right - as well as to you and your ends. Independence, productiveness, integrity and justice are the key virtues in a rational partnership and initiative.
Anyway, that's the standard as I see it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aV4tMvr7xZY
 

***Split from Correspondence and Coherence***

Most upbeat. What's to stop bitcoin crashing in a year or two? There's no inherent or objective value/standard that I can see, and the huge fluctuations seen in its value point to its obvious attraction for speculators, well above the individual freedom and practicality the writer justifies. Does one want to own a speculative cryptocurrency which can soar or crash, the value varying by market demand day by day? Could make one nervous.

I know several people who made money and some who lost a lot due to the girations of Bitcoin so I don't have any fascination either way. But from the technical side, bitcoin or blockchain used in bitcoin type electronic cash has at least one built in use. It cuts out the middle man in financial situations where "proof of funding" is necessary.
Proof of funding means, I know what your account number is and I know the balance ... right now.
Let us say, you have a volunteer fire department. There are a thousand inhabitants, that sign up for the protection. At any moment, the users of the service want to know if the service is fully funded. But ... some or all the users of the service don't want anyone to know if they paid or not. Some will pay extra and some will not pay enough. Nevertheless, people want to know if the service is fully funded, so that it is in operation. They want to know things like  "is it about to go bankrupt or not".
The way it is right now, with our cash and bank system, the ledgers are private. You have to jump through hoops to find out if the bank account of the volunteer fire department is fully funded.
With a bitcoin type solution, you would know if the service is full funded IMMEDIATELY. The ledger is available to all without a bank middleman, without auditors, accountants etc. You see the full funding of the entity without any of that expense.
Now, for that to happen, the fire department declares to everyone what their account number is. So everyone can determine what the balance is as it changes moment by moment.
People see money going from accounts that they don't know who owns, to an account that is known to everyone.
That was just one use. There are many in relation to the fact that no banks are involved.
One the other hand, there is a fundamental problem. There are other coins that could do it faster and cheaper as transaction cost and speed suffer. So bitcoin clones are created without anything to stop it. It's a speculation problem that requires "maturity", psychological growth, in understanding how this market works so that money is not printed infinitely. Right now, the crypto space is just a casino.
In the case of Etherium, the entire stock market can run on it, without any safeguards. It would be truly a free market type market.
 

https://youtu.be/ssvSsMqTtjo
Kibbe on Liberty: Pandemic imprisoning and the culture war. Perspectives from Britain and the USA.
Great conversation.

https://youtu.be/ssvSsMqTtjo
Kibbe on Liberty: Pandemic imprisoning and the culture war. Perspectives from Britain and the USA.
Great conversation.

https://youtu.be/ssvSsMqTtjo
Kibbe on Liberty: Pandemic imprisoning and the culture war. Perspectives from Britain and the USA.
Great conversation.

The Bros. are good alright, I liked that one too. Not a hint of parodying the original. Watched 'Fargo' last night once more, like here, a very believable, strong-minded female role.  

Like this one?
Most telling comment: "I forgive myself for every stupid thing I've ever done. Thanks Sam!"
Next thought experiment, imagine what one could see if Harris' opinions were widely popular and influential? Oh, they are? Too late.
 
https://youtu.be/u45SP7Xv_oU
 

Violence with sexual attraction; violence with humor. These achieve what the script writer wants, that we second-guess and negate the ugliness of violence to find hidden motives. Instead of violent acts being the last recourse, when reason has failed, violence is - normal. Or sexy or funny. It's in fact the substitute for reason. Which is why there's hardly a film made now that hasn't a fight scene in it: Muscles over minds.
 In a distorted pursuit of the hero values people inchoately still need, the last man(woman) standing *must* be somewhat better, 'heroic', than their antagonists, by definition. And all he/she did was beat them in combat.

Avoiding racism?  Heavens, no; I actually find actual racism to be quite funny.  Those are my favorite sorts of jokes!
Because actual racism is fucking silly!
 
 
Good night.

Exquisite. The smooth canvas a superb choice for the subject. She's almost hyper-real.

In the spirit of leaning toward the religious over the collectivist, Christianity and Culture in an Age of Crisis admonishes readers to build a new culture in the carcass of what is going on around them. (It was a Real Clear Religion provided link.)
Rod Dreher, senior editor at The American Conservative, is by far the most discussed author of this group, with his The Benedict Option first appearing in 2017. Dreher’s work casts a vision of Christian life in society that is less interested in steering the cultural ship than it is in fashioning a life raft to get away from the shipwreck of political and cultural liberalism. He replaces the old paradigm of “capturing the vote” with a vision of culture-building. Instead of creating a network of political influencers, Dreher opts for building a new world in the shell of the old, instructing Christians to establish classical schools, raise up families, and establish networks for Christian entrepreneurs.
A few more paragraphs down with a darker expectation set in bold :
[W]hat Christians need is not to abandon the free market, but to create parallel networks within it, to prepare for poverty and marginalization, situates the future of Christian work within the existing frame of the free market, encouraging entrepreneurial ventures and prudential engagements in opposing encroachments upon Christian values at work.
In short, some of the same things some active interests for a more rational society are suggesting, such as: establishing Montessori schools curricula, creating networks of philosophic influences.
From the Christian element too, could be added to set an example of living by ones 'beliefs' (or better yet, one's rational convictions) and, if family is a value, rearing children with such examples to be exposed to during their formative years.

"We The Dying", perhaps?
To be taken as metaphor, but "better to die on your feet than to live on your knees". As the character Kira showed.
I only caution to pick your fights carefully. I'm afraid this is one that no one can immediately win against the weight of 'public opinion' (emotions). Live to fight another day.

I've been thinking about this overall topic for a while, and I am beginning to think that Leftism is indeed the greater evil. My reasoning might be different from Bernstein's, though. (I read his article but I was never able to watch the debate.)
To review what Peikoff said in OPAR: Objectivism holds that existence has primacy over consciousness, but most philosophies hold the opposite, i.e., that consciousness controls existence. For them, the question becomes one of whose consciousness controls existence, and the classical answers are: God, society, or oneself.
I've posted before that "each variant of the primacy of consciousness has its own political party." (In the USA.) So the Republicans believe that God's consciousness controls existence, the Democrats believe that society controls it, and the Libertarians believe that one's own consciousness controls it.
But the interesting question is, what happens when the facts of reality contradict the primacy of consciousness viewpoint -- when you hold one of these beliefs, and existence is "resisting" you, what do you do?
If your own consciousness controls existence then you'd seek to control existence by changing things in your own mind. As a result, you'd probably be willing to entertain just about any idea, just to see how it affects your reality. If your current ideas don't work, you just keep looking. (This has a superficial similarity to the Objectivist approach -- but it lacks the requirement that your ideas have to conform to reality. Instead it expects that reality shifts and changes according to whatever ideas you hold.)
If God's consciousness controls existence -- and existence resists you -- then too bad: you can't control God. All a religionist can do is "accept God's will," or pray and ask Him to change it.
Religionists are infamous for trying to force others to "accept God's will," and this is why they take it upon themselves to punish sinners and so forth, but they do not believe that this actually changes reality. They merely believe they are demonstrating their loyalty to God by acting on His behalf. (He could as well act on His own, but why wait?)
From an Objectivist perspective, there is a big loophole in a religionist's views: if you can demonstrate that reality is really a certain way, then they will be forced to concede that God must be allowing that, and then they must accept it.
I think this loophole is what provided Aquinas an opening. First, he could demonstrate that man has the capacity for reason. (So God must have allowed that. Why?) Second, he could demonstrate that the behavior of reality (which, for a religionist, is an aspect of the "mysterious" will of God) could actually be determined by reason. Aquinas's conclusion was that God would not have allowed man to possess reason if it were any threat to Him. So the path was open to the Renaissance and the Enlightenment.
Of course, a religionist may be persuaded to accept reality for the time being, but sometimes they will pray fervently for God to change it, and sometimes they will have so much faith that God is going to change it for them, that they start acting to cash in on the change before God makes it, e.g., "I can print unlimited money without causing inflation because I have some pull with God, and He'll change the laws of economics for me, because I'm His faithful follower -- you'll see!" And in fact the virtue of "faith" encourages such behavior. To believe in God means to believe that God is going to change things before he does. (And then He never does, and disaster ensues, and they shrug and say, well, God's will be done.)
There are also cases where a religionist might think that his knowledge has come directly from God and therefore supersedes reality. However, facts are stubborn things.
But then I come to the Leftists.
If society's consciousness controls existence, then you would seek to control a non-compliant reality by controlling society more. If reality is non-compliant, then it must be because too many people are thinking the wrong way. I think this is why leftists are obsessed with influencing and controlling society, and why their beliefs naturally lead to dictatorship. They have to control the thinking of large numbers of people, because that's how they seek to control reality. And if reality continues to disobey, they tighten the controls on society even more.

The govt. do nothing method, counter-intuitively for nearly everyone, was always going to be and still looks to be the correct strategy. Some scientists recommended that approach at the start of the pandemic (and were silenced on social media). The role of government, surely, is to advise of the latest information and allow the public to choose, it's their own (and their grandma's) lives to look after not any (scientific) bureaucrat's to control.
On the face of it, I'd agree with ET that masking is the softest measure. Better than the anti-life lockdowns. Apart from how it has still devastated small and medium businesses, all part of "the economy" - I'd also point out the psychology of it. That even now out of lockdown, watching masked people scurry around avoiding each other, rushing home to safety - the whole mask business is fraught with guilt and fear. We've been taught that masks protect others better than oneself. The onus has been thrown onto one to care for others first. Largely away from protecting oneself (if need be).
On pain of death, everyone hates imagining the possibility of transmitting the virus to another person. That way, the 'other' has become our standard of morality in the pandemic and will be long afterwards. And the children, who have been warned and admonished by parents and adults that they are responsible for others' lives. How does that duty and this long episode go on to affect them later in life? Depression, low self-esteem, angry defiance?
Many people, while watching the numbers climb, might feel guilty that they personally are too healthy or young to be a victim of Covid. Guilt and fear, once implanted, is the way a society becomes obedient to others/Gvt. and will meekly surrender its freedoms.

Certainly not "horrible" to say. It was not said enough. By anyone, not enough by those who know that the standard of value is man's life, a life with quality, lived "as man", lacking which lives are hardly worth living. Nothing - not a thing- should have stopped man's life from continuing for a moment. The pandemic would have an end, but people by the billions, have suffered and lost without end. It's the meek acquiescence to sacrifice I can't stand and find tragic: "Ah but you know it's Covid, what can one do?" - says the person who's permanently closed the doors to his long-established business. Or those who have run out of savings while unemployed, or mental health and medical damages - and so on and on. (I believe we won't catch up on the cost to individual lives for another generation, at least). No, the cause was not Covid, it was the lockdown, social distancing - and masking - the bureaucrat and social edicts that raised panic levels and embedded this sacrificial responsibility to others over one's own life. Reality check, if it's SO risky for you (anyone) to catch Covid, go into hiding. Don't emerge until it's over, or you get vaccinated. And if you need and choose to go out ~you~ mask up and avoid contact with the majority, the active folk. What gives one the greater moral right to presume on being specially protected by outsiders intent on fully living their lives? Altruism, the default universal code. And right, I'm sure most would take care around the elderly, etc., but don't push it!  I'm glad someone is also infuriated at the utter human wastage over this pandemic year, HD. Everyone I know, almost, has taken the human losses as a given. Some intellectual I read, raved - Is it not incredibly wonderful that we would give up our global economies to save lives? Horrible man.

A modern physician plunked down in the middle ages might be able to accomplish a little medically, but this would be very limited, because most people would not understand what he or she was saying and would disagree with whatever they did understand, and because there would be no modern tools.
If we're talking about major change in society, the effectiveness of Objectivism will be very limited as long as most people disagree.  On this scale, the effectiveness of Objectivism will increase as more people come to understand and appreciate it.
Objectivism is still effective as a tool for living one's own life.

I expect this was a deliberate straw-man set up for rhetorical purposes, but still...
 
Suppose someone went out and had a one-night-stand with someone one night and several months later discovered that they had AIDS.  The other person had known about their condition but hadn't mentioned it until it was too late, and now one of their lifespans has been significantly reduced; essentially robbing them of all the years they now won't survive to.  Have their individual rights been violated?
I think so.  If you are a responsible adult and you know that you carry a transmissible disease then part of being responsible should mean trying to minimize the risk of inadvertently harming others (at minimum informing them of the possible consequences of certain interactions, if they wouldn't already know) and if you fail to do that then you are criminally negligent.  It's analogous to if you ran over and killed someone because you were drunk or texting while driving; you are criminally responsible for the consequences of your own irresponsibility.
 
That's not what's wrong with the mask militia.
 
Firstly, there's the question of whether you are in fact a carrier of the Wuhan Flu.  You'll notice that never comes up - because the assumption is that everyone could have it, because EVERY single one of us has either had it already or probably will have it, unless we're vaccinated first.  But if you've already had it then you are immune (at least to the specific strain you caught), cannot now be a carrier and have no good reason to wear a mask at all.
Secondly, one of the core assumptions in the AIDS analogy (and to any other disease that warrants such treatment) is that the other person would not have caught the disease otherwise.  And there is no conceivable way to apply such reasoning to the Wuhan Flu.  If you do not get vaccinated for it then you will catch it from someone, somewhere, eventually.  So it makes far less sense to hold any one person accountable for any specific transmission because if they didn't spread it, someone else certainly would have.
Thirdly, AIDS is a disease which might actually kill someone, at some point.  Imagine suing someone for giving you a rather nasty head cold that lasted all of a week!
Finally, even in the AIDS analogy there is the chance that after informing the other person of your disease they might still choose to sleep with you (IDK; maybe you're just that good-looking) in which case they've taken on the responsibility for any potential infection.  You can only be held guilty if you weren't up-front with everything you knew at the time.  And this REALLY breaks down when you remember the degree of individual autonomy we're allowed to have about potentially spreading the Wuhan Flu.
We're not being allowed to take whatever risks we personally, rationally consider appropriate, in any sphere of our lives.  We're being gagged and leashed "for our own safety" and that's that.
And that's specifically what's pissing me off.